Download or read book The Infatuations written by Javier Marías and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-08-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book, NPR Great Reads, and Onion A.V. Club Best Book of 2013 Each day before work María Dolz stops at the same café. There she finds herself drawn to a couple who is also there every morning. Observing their seemingly perfect life helps her escape the listlessness of her own. But when the man is brutally murdered and María approaches the widow to offer her condolences, what began as mere observation turns into an increasingly complicated entanglement. Invited into the widow's home, she meets--and falls in love with--a man who sheds disturbing new light on the crime. As María recounts this story, we are given a murder mystery brilliantly encased in a metaphysical enquiry, a novel that grapples with questions of love and death, chance and coincidence, and above all, with the slippery essence of the truth and how it is told. This ebook edition includes a reading group guide.
Download or read book Javier Mar as s Debt to Translation written by Gareth J. Wood and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about translation and literary influence. It takes as its subject Spain's most important contemporary novelist, Javier Marías (1951-), who worked as a literary translator for a significant portion of his early career. Since then, he has maintained that translation had a crucial impact on the development of his writing style and his literary frame of reference. It examines his claims to the influence of three writers whose works he translated, Laurence Sterne, Sir Thomas Browne, and Vladimir Nabokov. It does so by engaging in close reading of his translations, examining how he meets the linguistic, syntactic, and cultural challenges they present. His prolonged engagement with their prose is then set alongside his own novels and short stories, the better to discern precisely how and in what ways his works have been shaped by their influence and through translation. Hence this study begins by asking why Marías should have turned to translation in the cultural landscape of Spain in the 1970s and how the ideological standpoints that animated his decision affect the way he translates. His translation of Sterne's Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is set alongside his pseudo-autobiographical novel Negra espalda del tiempo (Dark Back of Time), while his translation of Sir Thomas Browne's Urn Burial is then analysed in tandem with that produced by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares. Subsequent chapters examine how Browne's prose has shaped Marías's thinking on oblivion, posterity, and time. The final chapters offer an analysis of the partial translation and palimpsest of Lolita he undertook in the early 1990s and of his most ambitious novel to date, Tu rostro mañana (Your Face Tomorrow), as a work in which characterization is underpinned by both literary allusion and the hydridization of works Marías has translated.
Download or read book Thus Bad Begins written by Javier Marías and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2016 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **Named a Best Book of the Year by the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times** From the internationally acclaimed author of The Infatuations comes the mesmerizing story of a couple living in the shadow of a mysterious, unhappy history--a novel about the cruel, tender punishments we exact on those we love. Madrid, 1980. Juan de Vere, nearly finished with his university degree, takes a job as personal assistant to Eduardo Muriel, an eccentric, once-successful film director. Urbane, discreet, irreproachable, Muriel is an irresistible idol to the young man. But Muriel's voluptuous wife, Beatriz, inhabits their home like an unwanted ghost; and on the periphery of their lives is Dr. Jorge Van Vechten, a family friend implicated in unsavory rumors that Muriel now asks Juan to investigate. As Juan draws closer to the truth, he uncovers only more questions. What is at the root of Muriel's hostility toward his wife? How did Beatriz meet Van Vechten? What happened during the war? Marías leads us deep into the intrigues of these characters, through a daring exploration of rancor, suspicion, loyalty, trust, and the infinitely permeable boundaries between the deceptions perpetrated on us by others and those we inflict upon ourselves.
Download or read book Soldiers of Salamis written by Javier Cercas and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel of the Spanish Civil War, a modern classic, and a searing exploration of the unknowability of history, by the acclaimed author of Outlaws In the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, an unknown militiaman discovered a Nationalist prisoner who had fled a firing squad and taken refuge in the forest. But instead of killing him, the soldier simply turned and walked away. The prisoner, Rafael Sánchez Mazas—writer, fascist, and founder of the Spanish Falange—went on to become a national hero and ultimately a minister in Franco's first government. The soldier disappeared into history. Sixty years later, Javier Cercas—or at least, a character who shares his name—sifts through the evidence to establish what really happened that day. Who was the soldier? Why didn't he shoot? And who was the true hero in the story? Every answer yields another question in this powerful and elegantly constructed novel about truth, memory, and war.
Download or read book Venice an Interior written by Javier Marías and published by Hamish Hamilton. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential companion for every traveller to Venice, this is the hidden city revealed in a gorgeous non-fiction account by one of Europe's greatest living writers, Javier Marías Century after century, the essence of Venice is unchanging. It is a place of contradictions, equal parts glamour and chaos. As a young man, Javier Marías made the city his home; since then he has left and returned many times, drawn back to its labyrinth of blind alleys, its pearly green canals, its imagined spaces. His love affair with the city has lasted over thirty years - he has traced every inch of its endless interior, has lived among the Venetians and lived apart from them. In Venice, An Interior, Marías sets out to uncover the heart of this strange and enchanting place.
Download or read book All Souls written by Javier Marías and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A visiting Spanish lecturer at Oxford University is amused, puzzled, delighted and disgusted by its vagaries of human vanity. With little to do, and unable to visit his very-married mistress, he has time to observe Oxford vagaries and mores.
Download or read book The Society of Others written by William Nicholson and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2011-01-21 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “He has nowhere to go. So he goes there.” T o escape the pressures of family life and alienation from his contemporaries, the unnamed narrator of this existential novel heads out from home to hitchhike without destination. But his journey soon turns into an orgy of violence. A truck picks him up and soon we are at a checkpoint in some totalitarian European state riddled with terrorists. The driver hands the narrator a slip of paper and then tells him to jump — he does, just before the driver is shot and the truck is blown up, revealing its cargo of books. Thus begins a novel that is part spy story, part philosophical treatise — one that sweeps the reader along. Hypnotic, intellectually challenging, with all the pace and thrust of a thriller, The Society of Others introduces an important novelist with a long career ahead.
Download or read book Written Lives written by Javier Marías and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An affectionate and very funny gallery of twenty great world authors from the pen of "the most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature" (The Boston Globe).
Download or read book The Man of Feeling written by Javier Marías and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A story of love and memory from "the most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature" (The Boston Globe) and the award-winning, international bestselling author of The Infatuations. On a train journey from Paris to Madrid a young opera singer becomes fascinated by those in his compartment: a middle-aged businessman, his alluring wife, and their male traveling companion. Soon his life of constant travel, luxury hotels, rehearsal and performance will become entangled with these three people, and the singer will find himself fatefully consumed by Natalia's beauty. The Man of Feeling is the haunting story of the birth and death of a passion, told in retrospect. Intricately interweaving desire and memory, it explores the nature of love, and asks whether we can ever truly recall something that no longer exists.
Download or read book The Idea Factory written by Jon Gertner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of America’s greatest incubator of innovation and the birthplace of some of the 20th century’s most influential technologies “Filled with colorful characters and inspiring lessons . . . The Idea Factory explores one of the most critical issues of our time: What causes innovation?” —Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book Review “Compelling . . . Gertner's book offers fascinating evidence for those seeking to understand how a society should best invest its research resources.” —The Wall Street Journal From its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labs-officially, the research and development wing of AT&T-was the biggest, and arguably the best, laboratory for new ideas in the world. From the transistor to the laser, from digital communications to cellular telephony, it's hard to find an aspect of modern life that hasn't been touched by Bell Labs. In The Idea Factory, Jon Gertner traces the origins of some of the twentieth century's most important inventions and delivers a riveting and heretofore untold chapter of American history. At its heart this is a story about the life and work of a small group of brilliant and eccentric men-Mervin Kelly, Bill Shockley, Claude Shannon, John Pierce, and Bill Baker-who spent their careers at Bell Labs. Today, when the drive to invent has become a mantra, Bell Labs offers us a way to enrich our understanding of the challenges and solutions to technological innovation. Here, after all, was where the foundational ideas on the management of innovation were born.
Download or read book A Heart So White written by Javier Marías and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE IMPAC DUBLIN AWARD • Widely considered a masterpiece, a breathtaking novel about family secrets that chronicles the relentless power of the past—from the award-winning author of The Infatuations and "Spain's best writer" (Roberto Bolaño, national bestselling author of The Savage Detectives). Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know. Secrecy—its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility—hovers throughout the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Marías elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into shadows and onto the costs of ambivalence.
Download or read book Last Words on Earth written by Javier Serena and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the excruciating travails and sudden, immeasurable success of a Roberto Bolaño-esque writer.
Download or read book The Rough Guide to Peru written by Dilwyn Jenkins and published by Rough Guides UK. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rough Guide to Peru covers the country in-depth from the jawdropping attractions of the Macchu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and Colca Canyon to Lima's endlessly hip restaurant scene. Rough Guides' four expert authors have covered every inch of Peru, communing with Amazon shamans, rafting the waters of the mighty Urubamba and hiking to the little-visited Inca ruins of Choquequirao. Discover where to find Peru's best pisco sour, view the rainforest high up from a canopy walkway or check out the country's coolest surfing hangout with Rough Guides' things not to miss section. Learn how to get the most out of one of South America's most versatile destinations with The Rough Guide to Peru range of itineraries. Meet the Incas with our in-depth history section and read about everything from traditional panpipe music to hallucinogenic plants. Over 70 clear, full-colour maps help you find a hostel while our easy-to-use transport info will make sure you don't end up on a chicken bus to nowhere!
Download or read book Tender Is the Flesh written by Agustina Bazterrica and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing. Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.
Download or read book The Measure written by Nikki Erlick and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! "A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster for readers of The Midnight Library. Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge? The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything. Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious, and invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.
Download or read book The Rough Guide to Peru written by Rough Guides and published by Rough Guides UK. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 762 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rough Guide to Peru covers the country in-depth from the jawdropping attractions of the Macchu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and Colca Canyon to Lima's endlessly hip restaurant scene. Rough Guides' four expert authors have covered every inch of Peru, communing with Amazon shamans, rafting the waters of the mighty Urubamba and hiking to the little-visited Inca ruins of Choquequirao. Discover where to find Peru's best pisco sour, view the rainforest high up from a canopy walkway or check out the country's coolest surfing hangout with Rough Guides' things not to miss section. Learn how to get the most out of one of South America's most versatile destinations with The Rough Guide to Peru range of itineraries. Meet the Incas with our in-depth history section and read about everything from traditional panpipe music to hallucinogenic plants. Over 70 clear, full-colour maps help you find a hostel while our easy-to-use transport info will make sure you don't end up on a chicken bus to nowhere!
Download or read book John Carter in A Princess of Mars written by Edgar Rice Burroughs and published by Tantor eBooks. This book was released on 2012-03-02 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Carter, Civil War veteran, is attacked by murderous Apaches whilst prospecting for gold. Taking refuge in a strange cave in the Arizona hills he is transported to the planet Mars, and plunged headlong into the conflicts of a dying world. Upon the strange red soil of 'Barsoom' he must do all that he can to stay alive and uphold the values of his beloved Virginia. Given super strength and agility thanks to the lighter gravity, he soon becomes a renowned warrior among the barbarous green martians. But when a beautiful human Princess falls into their hands he will need more than just muscle power to help her escape. What follows is one of the greatest adventure stories of all time -- featuring vicious sword fights, daring midnight escapes, a passionate romance, and huge battles upon the dry ocean beds of Mars. As captivating as the day it was first published, A Princess of Mars went on to inspire everything from Superman to Star Wars, and remains one of the best examples of science fiction ever written.
